00000289.htm

THE LAST HARVEST

piled by some patient and industrious person, at
least half of it is not worth the paper on which it
is printed. There seem to be more quotations in
it from Shakespeare than from any other poet,
which is as it should be. There seem to be more
from Emerson than from any other American poet,
which again is as it should be, Those from the
great names of antiquity—-the Bible, Sadi, Cicero,
uEschylus, Euripides, Aristotle, and others—-are all
worth while, and the quotations from Bacon, New-
ton, Addison, Locke, Chaucer, Johnson, Carlylc,
Huxley, Tennyson, Goethe are welcome. But
the quotations from women writers and poets,—
Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Sigourney, Jean Ingelow, and
others, — what are they worth ? Who would expect
anything profound from J. G. Holland or Chapin,
O. W, Holmes, or Alger, or Alcott, or Helps, or
Dickens, or Lewes, or Frou.de, or Lowell? 1
certainly should not.

Such a selection is good to leaf over. Your
thought may be kindled or fanned here and there.
The subjects are arranged alphabetically, and em-
brace nearly all themes of human interest from
ability to zephyrs. There is very little from Whit-
man, and, I think, only one quotation from Thoreau.

The death of Howells gave rne a shock, I had
known him long, though not intimately. He was
my senior by only one month. It had been two



	THE LAST HARVEST piled by some patient and industrious person, at least half of it is not worth the paper on which it is printed. There seem to be more quotations in it from Shakespeare than from any other poet, which is as it should be. There seem to be more from Emerson than from any other American poet, which again is as it should be, Those from the great names of antiquity—-the Bible, Sadi, Cicero, uEschylus, Euripides, Aristotle, and others—-are all worth while, and the quotations from Bacon, New- ton, Addison, Locke, Chaucer, Johnson, Carlylc, Huxley, Tennyson, Goethe are welcome. But the quotations from women writers and poets,— Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Sigourney, Jean Ingelow, and others, — what are they worth ? Who would expect anything profound from J. G. Holland or Chapin, O. W, Holmes, or Alger, or Alcott, or Helps, or Dickens, or Lewes, or Frou.de, or Lowell? 1 certainly should not. Such a selection is good to leaf over. Your thought may be kindled or fanned here and there. The subjects are arranged alphabetically, and em- brace nearly all themes of human interest from ability to zephyrs. There is very little from Whit- man, and, I think, only one quotation from Thoreau. * The death of Howells gave rne a shock, I had known him long, though not intimately. He was my senior by only one month. It had been two